Some speeches are called to fire up a team and embrace the moment. Others speak to audiences that could fill more than 83 Carrier Domes.

Jim Valvano was the former men's basketball coach at North Carolina State, where he won a national championship. He eventually became an analyst for ESPN and was a consummate professional and entertainer throughout his entire life.

Like all great performers, he ended on a high note.

In 1993 "Jimmy V" was awarded the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPYs. Valvano was battling cancer and had to be escorted up the stage by Dick Vitale and Mike Krzyzewski, the cancer limiting his ability to walk. The speech he gave went beyond box-outs and 2-3 zones. It transcended sports.

Valvano told the audience to laugh, think and cry every day. To run the gauntlet of emotions to realize what a gift you have.

He stressed the importance of dreaming. "You have to have a dream, a goal," he proclaimed as the cancer was eating him away.

"I will thank God for the day and the moment I have." It was special coming from someone who would have been better suited counting life by the minute.

Yet Valvano embraced life during that speech, every speech before and every speech after. Life was the greatest gift he was given, and he clawed, kicked and punched to keep it in his corner. He wasn't about to return the gift any earlier than it was due.

Valvano realized what he was up against battling cancer, yet he preached that it could not touch his mind, his heart and his soul. Cancer might destroy the body, he said, but it will not destroy who you are and the memories and relationships you have forged.

The Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research was born that night with the motto, "Don't give up, don't ever give up." The foundation has raised more than $50 million toward cancer research and has awarded research grants in 36 states and Washington, D.C.

Valvano died later in 1993, and Tuesday marks another Jimmy V Classic, hosted at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Kansas will take on St. Joseph's and Michigan State will face Boston College. It makes sense that a man, whom Sports Illustrated's Gary Smith described as having "an electric cable crackling through his body," would have his name on the floor of the world's biggest stage.

But this is bigger than just two games and a name on a court, for as many lives as Valvano touched through his time on earth, his name will live on through a foundation that save lives by donating money to cancer research.

No tumor can overcome that.